“[W]e've got three goddamn [est] staff members who are sick. Disgusts me when people are sick. I don't like people to be sick. It's the wrong kind of people who work here. People who work here ought to be healthy — real healthy. Like bad healthy. Like germs should be frightened of people who work here. (Laughter.) Don't get sick — I'm not kidding — I don't like it. Pisses me off.”

— Werner Erhard, transcript of teleconference call, August 1983

“Like Ben Franklin once said, 'The only greater liar than a quack is the patient who goes to him.' Sometimes I call it 'the dance of the crazies.' “

— Dr. Wally Sampson, Stanford faculty and chairman of National Council Against Health Fraud

“Studies after studies indicate that no one particular therapy is better than another, in terms of outcome. There are a few studies that show that therapy has no effect whatsoever. There was a study years ago about people waiting for therapy, and ones that were waiting did better than the ones that got therapy. They're so subjective. How do you really measure whether therapy is successful, or has any long-term effects? I think it's a tricky business.”

“We had no fixed blueprint for what it would be, but the idea just intrigued me. It was to be a meeting of East and West, a modern approach to understanding human nature. It unfolded on its own terms.”

— Michael Murphy, on founding Esalen with Richard Price in 1962

“If [New Age gurus] were not selling inner peace, they would be selling aluminum siding.”

— Tony Schwartz, author of What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America